All in a morning’s work for e.tv newsreader Mankayi
WHEN Walter Sisulu University (WSU) graduate Nwabisa Mankayi enrolled for a journalism diploma, little did she know she would one day land up as newsreader for a leading news network.
The 31-year-old Uitenhage-born Mankayi reads the isiXhosa news on e.tv’s Sunrise.
Prior to joining e.tv, Mankayi was a news reporter and anchor on the Port Elizabeth-based Bay TV.
She said she had never thought would be a newsreader one day.
“This is not something I thought I would do, especially on television, maybe radio,” she said. Mankayi arrives at the e.tv offices in Johannesburg at 3am every morning to prepare for Sunrise. She has her first isiXhosa bulletin at 5.30am.
“The waking up part was my biggest challenge when I first started but now I am used to it. I don’t just read the news but I am also responsible for my own content,” she said, adding that she also worked as producer for other news shows as well.
“This is a learning platform for me that I am grateful for. We shoot packages as well – there’s more to this job than reading the news on TV,” she said.
Mankayi said reading news in Xhosa had given her the opportunity to learn more about her home language and fall in love with it. “I aspire to spearhead the use of African languages in schools,” she said.
“My goals include hosting conferences across all provinces in African languages, where moral regeneration will be among the topics discussed with high school learners.
“We need to encourage our kids to speak their home languages,” she said. she
Mankayi said she would also love to be a life coach one day and assist young people. “My favourite thing in the universe to do is to interact with other people on any topic at any given time. To me there is no difference in time – early morning or at night, I’m always ready to deliver.”
● Catch Mankayi every weekday when she reads the news on on e.tv from 5.30am. —